arrival time moved up: suggestions for day 1?

[Ladybugx87]

Hi everyone, I am running the Princess half in February and my airline just moved our flight earlier so we arrive on Friday at 9am. Can you help me make a plan for that day?

It will be my husband, me and our 2 daughters who will be meeting my friend and her family (flying in from different part of country) - we will go to the expo and eat at Chef Mickey's for dinner once friend arrives so what should we do during the day? Is there something that wouldn't involve going to a park? Can you use the pools at hotel on day of check in before check in time?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Hi everyone, I am running the Princess half in February and my airline just moved our flight earlier so we arrive on Friday at 9am. Can you help me make a plan for that day?

It will be my husband, me and our 2 daughters who will be meeting my friend and her family (flying in from different part of country) - we will go to the expo and eat at Chef Mickey's for dinner once friend arrives so what should we do during the day? Is there something that wouldn't involve going to a park? Can you use the pools at hotel on day of check in before check in time?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Yes, you can use the pool and all resort amenities prior to check-in time. We commonly fly in early in the day and use the time for a pool day. Since your room will likely not be ready (might be, but might not) you have to do a little pre-planning with your bags and packing so you have swim clothes readily available, but that’s usually easy enough to do.

A non-park option would be Disney Springs... lunch, shopping, etc.

My wife is running the race too, hope you have a good trip!

 

[kboo]

Where are you staying? We'll be at BLT (not running)! Pack a carryon with pool stuff, and depending on where you are staying, you can resort hop as well. The hotels on the monorail loop are fun to look around, have a quick meal and just soak up the atmosphere. Ditto with checking out the Boardwalk area if you are staying near there.

 

[nighttowll]

Once you arrive at your hotel, you should be able to go ahead and check in. You can store your bags with bell services. Then you are really free to do whatever.


You could visit the AKL, and see the animals there.

You could go visit FW. There are a number of activities there as well (fishing, hiking, horseback riding, carriage rides)

Take a trip to AoA to see all the giant statues. There are some really great photo opps here.

Disney Springs has a number of options:

• Fun themed restaurants. We love Trex. Eating in the ice cave while it changes colors is magical.
• A movie theater and bowling alley.
• Street entertainment.
• Shopping. The lego store is fun and kids can build race cars out of legos there.
• Void - virtual reality spot opening soon.

If visiting over Christmas, take time to tour the hotels to see the decorations.

Play mini golf.

Hang out at your hotel.

• You can definitely use the pool. Just make sure to pack your swim suits where you can get to them easily.
• Also check and see if your hotel has a scavenger hunt, some do.
• Check your hotels list of daily activities.
• If you are staying at a deluxe hotel, there will be a community activity room. The community room has all kinds of games and activities for kids to enjoy. Everything is free here except for crafts that require special supplies. For instance, coloring sheets and crayons are free, painting a ceramic pot, might cost a few dollars for the pot. All the games are free. Keep in mind this is a separate room from the arcade. I sent dad off with the kids one day to the community room. He came back broke, complaining about how expensive all the games were. I was like where did you take them? It doesn't cost anything! He completely mixed the two up!

Another option is planning one of the dinner theater meals, like the hoedown or the luau if the timing worked out, neither requires a park ticket.

 

[Ladybugx87]

Where are you staying? We'll be at BLT (not running)! Pack a carryon with pool stuff, and depending on where you are staying, you can resort hop as well. The hotels on the monorail loop are fun to look around, have a quick meal and just soak up the atmosphere. Ditto with checking out the Boardwalk area if you are staying near there.

Contemporary

 

[Ladybugx87]

Once you arrive at your hotel, you should be able to go ahead and check in. You can store your bags with bell services. Then you are really free to do whatever.


You could visit the AKL, and see the animals there.

You could go visit FW. There are a number of activities there as well (fishing, hiking, horseback riding, carriage rides)

Take a trip to AoA to see all the giant statues. There are some really great photo opps here.

Disney Springs has a number of options:

• Fun themed restaurants. We love Trex. Eating in the ice cave while it changes colors is magical.
• A movie theater and bowling alley.
• Street entertainment.
• Shopping. The lego store is fun and kids can build race cars out of legos there.
• Void - virtual reality spot opening soon.

If visiting over Christmas, take time to tour the hotels to see the decorations.

Play mini golf.

Hang out at your hotel.

• You can definitely use the pool. Just make sure to pack your swim suits where you can get to them easily.
• Also check and see if your hotel has a scavenger hunt, some do.
• Check your hotels list of daily activities.
• If you are staying at a deluxe hotel, there will be a community activity room. The community room has all kinds of games and activities for kids to enjoy. Everything is free here except for crafts that require special supplies. For instance, coloring sheets and crayons are free, painting a ceramic pot, might cost a few dollars for the pot. All the games are free. Keep in mind this is a separate room from the arcade. I sent dad off with the kids one day to the community room. He came back broke, complaining about how expensive all the games were. I was like where did you take them? It doesn't cost anything! He completely mixed the two up!

Another option is planning one of the dinner theater meals, like the hoedown or the luau if the timing worked out, neither requires a park ticket.

Thank you so much! This is hugely helpful.

 

[nighttowll]

Since you're staying at the Contemporary, there are a lot of water activities easily available to you as well.

You can rent many different types boats, rent bikes, there's volleyball, even parasailing.


http://www.disneycontemporary.com/content/activities

 

[bluezy]

I don't know the ages of your girls, but when my kids were little, simply riding the monorail was something they looked forward to. On arrival day, we'd take a bus to Epcot or MK and then ride both the Theme Park loop as well as the Resort loop. Sometimes we'd get off at a resort to explore and grab a snack.

Also, I know you said you didn't want to do something that involved going to a park, but I'm just going to throw this out there in case you (or others reading this) aren't aware. Depending on how many days you currently have tickets for, it will cost less than $20/person to add another day to your ticket. That could give you the ability to just spend a few hours at MK that day...especially since you're staying at the Contemporary. We never used to do a park on arrival day...until we realized how "cheap" it is to add a 7th or 8th day to our tickets. Now we always spend a few hours at Epcot on arrival day. We don't do a commando-touring day -- we just schedule our 3 FP's, have dinner, and head back to the resort by 8:00. It's a nice way to ease in to the vacation and we find it well worth the extra ~$15 even if we're only spend 3 or 4 hours in the park. We actually find going to Epcot for a few hours more relaxing than trying to do something *outside* of the parks.

 

[kboo]

Lots of fun at the Contemporary; @nighttowll has a great list.

We usually get the earliest flight out and land by 9am. We usually check in, drop bags and head to the nearest park for QS lunch and a few rides, very low key. Not a runner so I don't know how long it takes to check in, etc. but from the pictures I've seen, you'll want to spend some time there and take some pictures, etc. The rest of the day could easily be spent checking out the Contemporary and the activities there, or hopping on the monorail and visiting GF and Poly, checking out the lobbies and the grounds of both. The walk from GF to Poly is quite nice too.

At the contemporary, there's the lobby where you check in, and then there's also shops and restaurants on 4, where Chef Mickey's is. The GF has lots of shops and a gorgeous lobby, and a pianist there in the afternoons. It's lovely.